My computer is aging and I'm starting to have some issues with blue screens, lockups, and freezing. Problem is I'm on a severe budget. I can harvest my mouse, keyboard, speakers, monitors, and hard drives from my current system. So I need: - CPU and motherboard - Ram - Case and PSU My current video card is an nVidia 8800 GTS 640mb. I can salvage this if need be for the meantime until Christmas when I have enough to finish my system. My budget is $425. I haven't followed hardware trends in years and need advice.
CPU: i5 (229$) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504 i7 if you can afford it (329$) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116501 A PSU like that one plus a 50$ case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153114 4 gb of DD3 is around 20$. You can buy just one and fill your banks later, one by one. Ideally 8 gb minimum and 16 gb for ultimate fun. You're a little short for a good mobo. Can't you salvage your current case? You'd be okay then.
What motherboards would you recommend? And is it better to go with 2x 4 gig sticks or a single 8 gig? As far as my current case goes, its a cheap $25 case that I've been dying to replace.
Hell, with a budget of $425 you could buy a basic Dell or whatever and just transplant your current video card. It's PCI-E right? Check out this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883220194
If its just gaming then as suggested earlier, i5; with ASRock MB. They have good board with good price. You can go with low end Asus as well. You definitely wan to use dual ram, since almost all the board are dual channel. Just in general if you have micro center near you that will definitely help you save alot of money on Chip & MB.
I'd choose a board with 4 banks on it. Then if you're on a budget, you get one 4gb stick. Then later, when you have 20% lying around a second.... etc. 4g is enough to run win7. Not ideal, but enough. Then you can focus on other parts that aren' as easy to replace/add as RAM.
$59.99 right now with coupon code #EMCYTZT2355. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._mmc=EMC-GD101512-_-index-_-Item-_-13-130-653
Didn't read...what windows are you running?? If you're taking a jump, get 16GB Ram, and then turn off good ol' swap. Done and done. I've done that with my home PC and my new laptop...amazing.
I'll be running win 7 when its finished, but it looks like I'm going to need to wait another month to upgrade. I may have a slightly larger budget to go with the wait though. Maybe black Friday or cyber Monday will help out on my purchase as well? Thanks for the help everyone! I at least know what to look for next month.
Here is a good ASUS board for about 110ish. Just ordered one off of Amazon warehouse deals for a build I am doing for my mom. Showed up looking practically new. ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list...d_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=used&m=A2L77EE7U53NWQ
Yeah sorry about that. I copied + pasted and was being lazy and didn't really feel like adjusting for typographical pleasure.
I would just check slickdeals.net for deals on the stuff you need. If I can't find it there I go look at Amazon warehouse deals to see if anything good is in there.
So as I said before I had a little more budget than before. Here's my build: $109.99 - Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" $29.99 - G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) $19.99 - ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner $179.99 - ASUS ENGTX560 DCII OC/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 $219.99 - Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W $74.99 - MSI Z77A-G41 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX $74.99 - CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 __________________ $709.93 - Subtotal -$80 - Mail In Rebate Totals __________________ $629.93 - Grand Total I decided to re-use my current case, which allowed me to get the 1TB drive. I currently have a 160 gig and 640 gig hard drive, and with all the Fraps footage I've collected lately I figured another 1 TB was the right thing to do. So Tweakers, how'd I do?
The system looks pretty decent as is. Not sure when you finished building the system. But HD are alot cheaper now, and so was processor. With the saved money, you can beef up the GFX; just an idea. Out of curiosity what made you choose that Graphics card (aside from MIR)? Personally that's one component, i have the most difficult time deciding on lol.
You can get 120GB SSD's for under $80 if you look out for some deals ($60 if you got in on some BF deals). I highly recommend a SSD but besides that the build looks good. The perfect combo would be spend less on a normal cheap 1TB (non-black) and then get a 120GB SSD. You can get a 1TB hdd with BF deals for like $60-70. Then spend $70-80 on an SSD and you are gold.
I decided on the video card because of how quiet several reviews said it was (http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1679/13/ , http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_gtx560_directcu_ii_review,9.html). Since I've been doing some voice recording recently, having a more quiet room while also upgrading my old ass video card was a must. Ali, I decided on the WD Black because of the speed. I'm recording a lot of video game footage and one of the things everybody recommends is going with a faster hard drive because of the throughput needed. I'd love to get an SSD, but this computer was more out of necessity than anything else. Maybe I'll get one as an upgrade to replace my 160 gig in the future, but for now it's not a priority.
So I put my whole system together a couple of nights ago, plugged it in and was very glad it booted up first try. My biggest complaint about every computer I've ever built is how noisy the fans are, and was very pleased to not hear any fans at all (they were all spinning too!). So I begin my Windows 7 install and walk out of the room. I come back 20 minutes later to what sounds like a hair dryer behind my computer. I reach my hand down and there's just tons and tons of air blowing out of the power supply. After a bit of testing I figure out that the fan speed controller is messed up and is running the fan at 100% speed, even when it's not connected to anything more than a single fan (disconnected everything and used a paperclip to test it). I'm now waiting for my RMA number so I can send it back to Corsair and get a replacement. In the meantime I'm using my old PSU which is only a 500W, meaning I can't really stress my system without fear of over-using the old PSU.
Your system should reach anywhere near 400watts, let alone 500watts at my load. I wouldn't worry about it.
Almost every mainstream PSU maker has a wattage calculator on their website these days. I'm with Mr. Ali, unless your 500-watter is old and feeble, or you have a bunch of other stuff you haven't listed, you should be OK. For overclocking you're gonna want a solid 12v rail.
